


daisies and diamonds

by theredhoodie



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1946. The war has just finished, crime in Southern U.S. is on the rise, and a young woman named Kate Fuller is stuck in a life of repetitive boring days. That is, until the night when she happens to meet a real-life bank robber.</p>
            </blockquote>





	daisies and diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> So this started when I was listening to Kat Dahlia's "My Garden" while looking at a gifset of Angie and Peggy from Agent Carter. It was going to be something quite different, but turned into this little fluff-fest.
> 
> Written for Ace, who I love unconditionally so I hope she enjoys this!
> 
> And tirelessly edited by Jessie, who is the greatest person alive!

_My garden's wide of daisies_   
_And it's untouched of sin_   
_My root's been craving lately_   
_To soak in your diamonds_

**Texas, 1946**

The ding of the bell over the door was Kate Fuller's least favorite sound. She worked until eleven-thirty, and, after an eight hour shift, she didn't expect to hear any more dingings of bells after her last regular walked out at ten-forty-eight.

She was dressed in a teal and white uniform, her hair flat thanks to the many hours on her feet under a slightly pointed hat. A nametag pinned over her left breast was the only indicator of her existence outside of her uniform. Her name was unique to her, as everyone's was, but any other part of her that expressed that she was truly a person away from her job was hidden. Her face was plain without makeup, and her late mother's golden cross was tucked beneath her collar.

"You're just in time, mister," she said, looking up from behind the soda counter where she was scrubbing the top. "The kitchen is closin' in twenty."

The newcomer shook out a long black trench, pushing down his collar that was pulled up against the chilly night air. He was wearing a suit. Or, at least, part of a suit. He had the white shirt, the vest, no jacket, and the pants. His shoes, from where she was standing, looked wet, but worn. He wore no hat.

He had dark brown eyes, short dark hair, and a strong jawline. His nose looked like it'd been broken once. He immediately flashed her a white grin and hung his jacket up on the rack by the door.

"I've got good timin' then, dollface," he said, moving to sit at one of the two-seat tables in the middle of the room. He settled back in his chair gave her a wink.

Kate blinked, clutching her hands together behind the counter. Composing herself, she walked around to place a menu in front of him.

He waved a hand. "No, no need. I'll have a burger, fries, and a coke."

"That it?" she asked, not bothering to grab her pen to write it down. She noticed the wide berth of his shoulders, what nice hands he had, and how his face was rather handsome up close.

"If you're hidin' any whiskey behind the counter, I'll take that, too." He was being cheeky.

She puffed out her cheeks. "'Fraid not. How do you want your burger cooked?" She hoped Henry hadn't started cleaning the grill yet.

"Rare," the customer replied, holding her gaze for what felt like far too long.

Kate flushed and turned away quickly. Instead of calling her order through the opening behind the counter, she walked through the swinging door to give the order directly to Henry. The oil was still hot and he sliced two potatoes to throw into the vat before she left to take the soda out to the table.

"Thank you…Kate." He motioned to her nametag. "Lovely name. Is that short for Katherine?"

Kate hesitated. It was just the two of them there; the diner was otherwise empty. There was nowhere else she could busy herself without being conspicuous.

"Kathleen," she offered. "But I never responded to Kathy as a baby—and I might have just died if that nickname had stuck."

"Shame," he said, laying his hand on the table. "My grandmother's name was Katherine."

Kate forced herself not to smirk. It wasn't respectable, her father always told her. Well, he didn't think waitressing was respectable either, but he was out of the country doing missionary work, so he wasn't here to stop her. "Are you comparing me to your grandmother?"

He either recognized his mistake, or did this purposely. "She was a lovely woman."

"Then I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"

"Maybe." He smirked up at her. She found it endearing.

Kate only matched his smirk with slightly puckered lips that she tried to hide. She did so poorly. "What kind of respectable man comes to a diner at a time like this?"

"Who ever said I was respectable, sweetheart?" He said it sincerely, with a flare of mystery and noir around him.

Kate cleared her throat daintily, crossed her arms, and decided to return to a safer subject. "You know my name, I know your grandmother's name, but what might your name be? Or is it secret? Are you a spy?"

He didn't look like a spy, but she'd gotten caught up in the moment: echoes of the war were still evident in every walk of life. She knew that spies were real, and she wouldn't be all that surprised if they looked like the man in front of her.

"The name's Seth," he replied, flashing her another smile that stayed put while he spoke. "Seth Gecko. Ever heard of me?"

Kate frowned, searching her memory for the name. Just the other night, Henry had the radio on and there had been breaking news of a robbery by two brothers named Gecko just a few towns over. The people of Bethel were encouraged to keep their doors and windows locked and jewelry out of sight.

Instead of rushing to the door to run to the police station just around the bend, Kate merely took a small step forward and dropped her voice, though Henry couldn't hear a thing over the industrial fan set in the wall of the kitchen to suck out the humid air.

"You're a bank robber," she whispered. When she whispered, her voice got small and husky and she didn't like it, but this called for whispering.

His grin fell to a sly smirk. He crossed his arms and leaned forward a bit, tilting his head up toward her pretty little face. "That I am, princess. What d'you say about that?"

She thought about it. Her daddy would instantly call the police or walk to the station or tell him to scram. But Kate? She had a wild streak, one that was hard to contain and led her to do things like this. And by 'this', she meant that she was staying put and not yelling to Henry that they had a criminal in their midst. "Your life must be awful exciting." She was intrigued beyond measure, but her sly vocabulary from before was sliding through her fingers. The thought of adventure bubbled up in her stomach and set a hoard of butterflies loose.

His smirk was a little more smile this time. "That it is. Dangerous, too."

Just then Henry called "Order up" and his booming voice shattered the conversation between Kate and Seth. She jumped, the spell broken, and hurried off to get the plate from the small window. She carried it carefully, and set it down in front of him slowly as he unbuttoned his cuffs—he wasn't wearing cufflinks—and rolled his sleeves up. He had black marks going up his right arm. They looked as if they were tattoos, though she'd never seen a tattoo like that before.

She said nothing about it, only hesitated by the table, unsure if she should go start putting chairs up. When Seth said nothing more to her, she skittered away, her heart fluttering in her chest. She could hear Henry humming an awful tune loudly, and the scrape of chair legs against tiles kept her ears occupied.

At every spare moment, however, she glanced in Seth's direction. He was digging into the burger and fries like he hadn't eaten in days. With the look of him—disheveled—it was possible that he hadn't. She tried not to worry, and worked through putting every chair upside down, leaving only the stools that were bolted to the floor and the chairs at Seth's table.

He had eaten his burger like a man on the run. Granted, he  _was_  one, but the analogy still popped into her mind. Kate then smoothed down her apron and walked over to the table.

"All set?" she asked, her voice wavering. She could have pinched herself.

He looked up as he dabbed a napkin against the corner of his mouth. "I'd say so. Licked the plate clean." He gave Kate a smile without teeth, though it still felt genuine. She took the plate and returned it to the kitchen.

Seth was standing, hunched over and slurping up the rest of his cola when she came back.

"Oh," she said, stopping by the counter. "Are you leaving?"

He left the cup on the table and looked over at her, pulling down his shirtsleeves. "Don't sound so disappointed," he said, walking slowly toward his jacket hanging about two yards away.

Kate swallowed and stepped forward, lowering her voice once again. "I've never met a real-life bank robber before," she said, as if that answered everything.

"I prefer professional thief," he commented, deftly pushing shirtsleeve buttons through holes and then grabbing his jacket. He turned toward her as he slid it on, shrugging his shoulders so it fell properly against his form. "And don't worry, princess, this won't be the last you see of me."

He gave her another wide grin and wink, pulled up the collar of his jacket, and walked out the door. As soon as the bell rang a second time as the door swung shut, Kate found herself alone. She shook her head, and then her hands, as if they'd just fallen asleep.

Walking over to the table, she saw a few crumpled ones to cover his meal and a small tip, and then, under the napkin holder, next to the empty cup, was a note sprawled in a messy, rushed script:

_All for you – SG_

Kate lifted the napkin and gasped. Below it, a crisp hundred-dollar bill sat. She wrapped it hurriedly back into the napkin and slipped it into her apron, her face flushed. She almost rushed out the door to catch him, but knew he was long, long gone.

#

Every time the bell over the door dinged, Kate immediately looked up to see who was there. Every time she did, though, it was never the person she was looking for, the person she expected to come back. Why, she didn't know. Seth  _had_  said that it wouldn't be the last time they saw each other that night and Kate was clinging to that promise.

Three nights passed by and Kate was beginning to realize that it was not, in fact, all that wise for her to be holding out like she was for a professional thief. She tried not to think about what her father would say if he knew what she was thinking about for the better part of her day. She looked through the newspapers every day for any news about the bank robbery. Finding very little actually about the notorious brothers, Kate was left wondering.

Always wondering.

By the fourth day, Kate was ready to give up. It was a fleeting moment in time, something that she could tell her grandchildren about. How exciting it would be to tell them that she had once met a real-life bank robber?

It was light out after the lunch rush. When the crowd cleared, there were still a number of people sitting, eating pieces of pies or ordering meals. Kate was not the only waitress working now, so she had a little time to herself as she stood behind the soda counter, waiting for an order. She thought of her father then, where he was, how the mission was going—wondering, for a moment, if her father was experiencing the fallout from the war.

So distracted was she that she completely missed the ding of the bell that signaled the door being opened, or perhaps, because it was midday, it was easier to ignore. The man sat at a booth, though he was alone, and the other waitress, Hannah, stopped by to grab the coffee pot to fill his empty mug on the table. Just then, Henry called out Hannah's order.

"Oh, Kate, be a dear and bring that man some coffee, would you?" she asked before juggling a number of plates in her hands for a family of three.

Kate nodded, taking the pot and a mug on a saucer over to the table. Once she was standing at the end of the table, she put down the mug with a clatter.

Seth Gecko, moved with the sudden noise, looking up at her and smiling an easy, lazy smile that once again turned Kate's insides into a flurry. "Hello," he said.

Kate blushed, setting the mug right on the table and filling it with coffee. "I wasn't expectin' to see you again," she said simply, because it was the truth. She stood straight, holding the warm pot with two hands.

"Missed me, did you?" Seth smirked, reaching out for the mug and drinking it black.

"What are you doing here?" Kate asked, keeping her voice low.

Seth sat forward and glanced around the place. Everyone was enveloped in a conversation with their dining partner or a newspaper. "Sit," he said, motioning toward the empty booth opposite him.

Kate glanced around as well. "I suppose I can spare a minute," she said, putting the coffee pot on the table and sitting on the edge of the seat. "Where is your brother?"

He looked surprised at her interest. "Readin' up on the latest? I promise you, we are much better than they make us sound, princess."

Kate took her hands away from the pot and clasped them on the table, leaning forward while dropping her voice to a near-whisper. "Tell me somethin' about yourself. Just so I know that you're real." She hoped she didn't look too naïve, too curious. She  _was_  naïve and curious, but Seth was so much  _more_ ; the last thing she wanted to appear to him was childish.

He had been looking at her this entire time, but this was really the first time she'd allowed herself more than a passing gaze at his eyes. They were dark and rich and full, displaying his emotions.

Kate's lips parted slightly at the sight of them.

"I never knew my mother and my father died when I was a kid," Seth said simply, offering up some of the most personal information he could get away with in a public setting.

"Oh," Kate said, searching for something else to ask, but coming up blank.

"And, my brother," Seth continued, "got back from the war all shaken up inside. I thought fallin' into old habits would do him some good."

He didn't need to tell her that those old habits for the Geckos involved crime.

Kate wondered why in the world she wasn't more afraid of him and why she was so accepting of what he did. He didn't claim to be any sort of Robin Hood; he wasn't stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Yet, she was more intrigued beyond anything, and she couldn't get over the adventure that was his life.

"You didn't fight in the war?" Kate asked softly.

Seth didn't answer right away. He paused, then shook his head and smirked. "We've got another job. Hopefully our last job for a while." He leaned in closer, his coffee forgotten.

Kate leaned in farther as well, to a point where it felt like she was inappropriately close. No one seemed to notice them, though—they were all too involved in their own lives. "And you're tellin' me?"

"Of course," he answered.

She smiled slowly before biting down on her bottom lip and glancing around the restaurant. "Tell me quick, before someone notices I've been sittin' here."

Seth nodded, using his hands to emphasize his words. "A heavy hitter who really profited from the war has a stash of diamonds," he explained, his words whispers just loud enough for her to hear, "a whole bundle of rocks, no serials, clean and ready for a sell. My brother'll handle the buyin' and sellin'. But I gotta save one for my girl." He ended with a cheeky grin.

Kate's lips parted in surprise. He wasn't just talking about stealing money, he was stealing gems— _diamonds_!

Kate glanced to the side again and saw Hannah give a questioning look in her direction. Pushing down the butterflies in her stomach, Kate got to her feet and leaned down to pick up the coffee pot. "I ain't your girl, Mister Gecko," she said with an improper smirk. She took the pot and stepped away.

"Who said I was talkin' about you?" Seth said after her, but he was kidding no one.

#

Kate glued herself to the papers and to the radio. Any sort of thievery had to be dangerous, didn't it? There had to be guns and bodyguards. She had only brothers of friends who she knew from the war, but she wondered if they felt this anxiousness tenfold every day until their brothers returned to them. She didn't ever want to think about having something like this ripped away from her. She had only just found it; having it taken away would be far too cruel.

She was distracted everywhere she went. At work, shopping with her girl-friends, when she was making herself dinner in her small apartment. The next few days felt endless, like there was no end in sight.

And yet, there was nothing but the end in sight, wasn't there? She hadn't thought about what she would do when Seth finally came back. Did he want her to leave her life and go with him? Could she do that? What would she tell her daddy when he returned and found her gone?

Those kinds of questions kept her up at night until exhaustion tugged her off to dreams that made no sense while she was in them and less sense when she woke up afterward.

And then she saw it, one morning while she was waiting for her coffee to peculate on the stovetop. " **The Parker Hotel: Robbed!** " Somehow, without even reading the few lines of brevity underneath, Kate knew that it had Geckos written all over it. Once she had her coffee in hand, however, she read those few lines.

" _On the night of the 18_ _th_ _, Robert Johnson, proprietor and resident of the Parker Hotel in Houston, claimed he had been robbed. He, nor the police, did not disclose what had been taken, but with the amount of security now stationed in and around the building, one can guess it was something more lavish than a wallet._ "

Alone in her kitchen, Kate smiled into her coffee and smoothed the paper over the table. It said nothing of injuries or deaths.

It being her day off, Kate had plenty of time to worry and wonder, as she always did. She drafted letters to her father with open endings. She grabbed an early dinner with her friends Sally and Sally's fiancé, Keith. Dinner ended with the couple dragging her to go dancing with them. She went willingly, grateful for the distraction.

It was far later than she expected by the time she got back to her apartment. She pulled her shoes off straight away and left them by the door. She ran her hand over the open newspaper before she stripped out of her clothes and crawled into bed, not bothering to brush her hair.

She was woken up by someone knocking on her door sometime later. It was loud and it was much too early for that. She squinted at her watch sitting on her nightstand and saw it was three minutes past four; she had only been sleeping for a few hours. Grabbing a robe, she tied it and walked through the kitchen to the door.

"Who is it?" she said, her voice thick and sleepy.

"Who do you think, princess?" Seth's voice came from the other side.

Exhaustion gone in an instant, Kate quickly unbolted the door and opened it. Seth indeed stood there, looking unharmed and smart in a full suit, grey on black. She quickly stepped aside and he walked in.

"It's real late," Kate pointed out, closing the door behind her. For some reason, the kitchen felt too harsh for sitting at the moment, and she moved without question to her bedroom. She sat on her bed, her robe covering most of her. Her hair wasn't terribly messy, or so she gathered from the glance at her vanity.

Seth followed, saying nothing and stepping over the threshold into her room. "I know, I'm sorry," he said. "Mind if I…?" He motioned toward the bed.

Kate hesitated before she scooted back and gave him room to sit. Her father would kill her if he walked in right now. Luckily he was not in the country. Her heart fluttered and she pressed her hands together. "How are you? Nobody's sayin' anythin' about what happened. The newspaper only released a few sentences."

Seth rubbed his face with his hand. "It went…it  _went_. Bet everyone's trying to cover it up."

"Cover what up?" Kate felt as at ease here as when they were sitting across from one another at the restaurant. It was hard to find the words as to why this was so. It was because he asked nothing of her, only offering her an opportunity for something other than a dusty Texas life. It was because he hadn't lied to her about who he was, and because of that, she felt it was easy to trust him. It was a mix of many things.

Seth dropped his hands and looked over at her. "I've done some pretty bad things in my life," he started. His eyes flickered from her face to her collarbone, to her mother's cross which hung on a thin, gold chain. "Can you forgive me?"

Kate took in a small breath. "What've you done?" she asked softly. She reached forward, her skin making contact with his for the first time as she touched his hand. He was solid and warm and  _real_.

"I have bodies in my wake, darlin'," Seth said, though the words sounded like they almost pained him. "I don't like needless killin', but I'd be lyin' if I said I've never killed a man."

Kate felt a flutter in her chest of fear but it disappeared quickly. The world was filled with people who had taken lives without wanting to. Isn't that what a war was all about? "I forgive you," she said softly, and she meant it.

"I shot Robert Johnson," Seth added. "Richie and I. He's dead. The papers been lyin' about that."

They definitely had, considering the few lines she had read that morning. They said that Robert Johnson had claimed he was robbed. He couldn't do that if he was dead.

Kate blinked and sat forward on her knees, her leg folded under. "It's alright," she said. She meant it. Somehow, she  _meant_  all of this. Maybe she really was just a naïve, curious girl, but she'd never felt surer about anything else in her entire life before now.

Seth nodded, his eyes leaving hers momentarily to sweep around the room, bathed in the soft light of the lamp beside the bed. "You wanna go somewhere with me?" he asked.

"Where?"

"Everywhere," he replied, pausing to get something out of his pocket. "Leave everythin'. Come with me."

This was the moment Kate had been thinking about all week. She had never come up with what her answer would be. Now, confronted with it, it all seemed so easy. "Yes," she said with a nod. "Of course I will."

"Yeah?" Seth smiled something genuine and took her hand. He pressed something into her palm.

Looking down, Kate opened her fingers and gasped. Sitting in the middle of her hand was a perfectly formed diamond, larger than any diamond she have ever seen, or thought to see, in her entire life.

"Told you I'd bring you back one o' these," Seth said. He looked proud of himself.

Kate grinned, clasping her fingers tightly around it, her eyes locking with his. "When are we leavin'?"

Seth stood them and waved a hand toward her window. "Richie's down there waitin'."

"Oh!" Kate exclaimed, surprised by this, and stood as well. Her room was a mess; she hadn't finished the letter to her father. She wasn't ready.

But wasn't that what this was all about? Adventure, excitement, spontaneity?

"Give me five minutes?"

Seth nodded and moved out to the kitchen. Kate pushed the door almost closed with one hand and searched for a small bag on her vanity to put her diamond in. She found a pouch and let it fall inside. She grabbed her suitcase from under the bed and filled it with clothes, a photograph of her mother, a brush and some other things from her room. What more would she need? She had little. She took the small bit of money she had been saving and shoved it into the corner of her bag.

Dressing quickly, she pulled her hair hastily back without checking her reflection, and joined Seth in the kitchen. He looked too big for the small room, sitting at her tiny kitchen table where she still had the newspaper laid out.

"I'm ready," she said, before she could talk herself out of it—before she could think about it further.

Seth stood and put a hand lightly on the small of her back, following her outside. She locked the door and then slid the key back under the door before following Seth to the stairs. There was a sleek black car waiting half a block up the road; they wasted no time hurrying up the sidewalk to where Richie was waiting for them. Seth took her suitcase and put it in the trunk before pulling open the back door.

Kate slid inside and over to the other side of the seat when she realized Seth was joining her in the back. Seth got in after her and sat forward, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder. Richie was sitting behind the wheel wearing a suit identical to the one Seth was wearing. He startled awake and glanced at the girl in the back seat.

"Richie, Kate. Kate, my brother Richie," Seth motioned with his chin to both of them.

Kate smiled and told him hello. Richie blinked, said hi, and then started the car.

Kate's heart beat fast as they pulled away from the curb and began picking up speed, passing her building in a matter of seconds. She was doing something so impulsive that she wasn't sure she could ever come back from it.

And, as she looked over at Seth, she wasn't sure if she wanted to.


End file.
